About Us:
Our family has been operating canoe and kayak rentals since 1976, founded by a mother and son team, Gretchen and John Evans started renting canoes from a small camper located on the property. Gretchen found the property for sale in 1972 while trailblazing from Sarasota FL back to our home state of Illinois. She purchased it and with her son John, his wife Connie and family, moved here in 1974. While she worked full time in Tallahassee and John worked as carpenter they hand cleared the property on weekends. Over the next 2 years they worked, their rental fleet consisted of six Mohawk canoes, and lived out of a camper while John built the shop where we still do our rentals. Gretchen came up with the name T~n~T Hide-a-way, there are many different myths as to what the T~n~T stands for, dynamite - for such an explosive place, turkey and trout - what Gretchen thought she was seeing here which in truth were vultures and mullet. John operated the business full time till his untimely death in April of 1981 from a fatal car accident just 2 miles from leaving the river. Gretchen retired from the finance business and committed herself full time to the business. She became an icon to Wakulla County, not only because of her dynamite personality but for her involvement in the community, so much that the new bridge built in 2010 adjacent to our shop was dedicated as the GRETCHEN EVANS MEMORIAL BRIDGE. Numerous pictures in the Wakulla News and Tallahassee Democrat showed her at the river, either wading waist deep in Hurricane water or showing off her beloved manatees, she was among the first to document their existence in the river. She along with friends and neighbors founded the nonprofit organization of HuManatee, to help protect the Wakulla River herd of manatees. Through their efforts and education the entire region became aware of the manatees, and slow speed zone ordinances were put in place in the Wakulla and St. Marks rivers. Gretchen continued to run the business, she was helped with family, mostly grandchildren aka the river rats, until the fall of 2001 when she was totally disabled by a stroke. She stayed on the Wakulla River, cared for by her family till her death in September of 2005.
Now operated by the third generation of river rats, Robert Baker, our services have grown to include retail sales of Heritage kayaks and accessories, American Canoe Association certified instructions for canoeing and kayaking, guided eco-tours or self-shuttling service, along with repairs and rigging for kayaks. Our rental fleet now exceeds 60 boats that consists of two or three person canoes, angler kayaks for fishing, 10', 12' or 14' single sit-in or sit-on kayaks and tandem kayaks.
